Thoughts on social media, business and journalism from Suw and Kevin Charman-Anderson

As I sit in Vilnius Lithuania, the next to last stop on my 2011 journalism world tour, I was taken back to where my journalism career started: Hays Kansas I started my career as the regional reporter at a small town, 14,000 circulation newspaper, the Hays Daily News. The standard joke told by the locals was: It’s not the middle of no where but you can see it from here. My job was to cover 1100 square miles on northwest Kansas. I covered my first presidential election from Hays as local hero done good, Bob Dole, ran against Bill Clinton in 1996. Dole’s hometown of Russell Kansas was also the birthplace of another Republican candidate that year, Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter, who also ran the nomination that year. Apart from that, I covered what most cub reporters at local newspapers do: School board meetings, the weather (think storm chasing in Tornado Alley), the odd agriculture story and a beloved Sunday feature called the Nor’wester.

It was a great place to start journalism, working with a curmudgeonly good hearted editor, Mike Corn, and an award winning team of photographers, Steve Hausler and Charlie Riedel. Charlie now travels the world for the Associated Press. It’s still the second greatest job I’ve ever had, second only to working for the BBC in Washington. My job meant something. Western Kansas was a place fighting off decline in the 1990s. It was still reeling from the farm crisis, and as its youth left because they had to find work and their way elsewhere, many of its small towns fought off extinction. When I first moved there, Mike used to quiz me on where these small towns were. Every once in a while with a glimmer in his eye, he would say: “Ha, got ya! Trick question. It’s a ghost town!” For these small towns, I was all they had when it came to news, and they thanked me for it. It was deeply satisfying work.

Hays was also a great place to start because when I worked there, it was very innovative for a small newspaper. I started in December 1994, and we all had Macs on our desks and a cutting edge production system. For a newspaper of that size, I’m pretty sure that was rare then. The paper went online in 1996, and I applied to become their first internet editor. It was definitely ahead of its time.

Hays is why I’ve always been interested in local news, now mostly talked about as hyperlocal. What took me back to Hays? The Colombia Journalism Review has an interesting collection of views about Modesto California and journalism. It’s a world away from Hays and ten times as large, but for Hays and a lot of even smaller communities, the issues of providing journalism to these places is even more challenging than when I was there, especially in my adopted home of England, where the crisis in local journalism is even more acute. Although I cringe a bit when I read the CJR piece and detect a whiff of big city condescension (I’ll always be a country boy), their larger point is right:

If the digital-news revolution is to truly serve a mass audience, beyond educated and reasonably affluent urbanites, we must account for Modesto; we must find ways for innovation to flourish in poor towns where, for so long, it has been allowed to die.

I guess broadly, it’s not just the dying of journalism in not just poor towns, but also small communities, that worries me but the existential threat to rural areas full stop both in the US and the UK. That’s another issue, but if you’re interested in local journalism, it’s well worth a read. I especially love Rusty Coats’ piece. I met Rusty in 2005 at Web+10 at Poynter, and his story and mine share a lot of similarities. I love this line:

Fledgling news websites have cropped up across the country, led by journalists who bleed local, sometimes down to the neighborhood.

Local journalism survives on the dedication of these journalists, like Mike Corn. When I pulled up the Hays Daily News website tonight, there was Mike’s name. He’s still in Hays. He has threatened to leave several times since I left in 1996, but he’s still there. You have to have that kind of dedication because it sure as hell doesn’t pay that well. I made $2000 less than a first year teacher when I started in Hays. I made ends meet by having no student debt and living very frugally. I drove a very used car that had no working air conditioning, something you miss when it’s 45 C (114 F) on a hot, dusty summer day in Kansas.

Sceptical optimism

Local news and information has always been a tough business, and the ongoing economic crises aren’t making that any easier. It is good to see a renewed vigour when it comes to local. John Paton, dubbed newspapers’ digital apostle by the New York Times this week, is pulling the industry forward, and his digital first strategy has been a clarion call to his editors and journalists, many who work at small newspapers. Steve Yelvington has long been a leader in digitally-led local journalism, and as Morris, the group he works for, moves digital close to its core, I’m sure we’ll see great things. I’m sure we’ll see new efforts in how communities cover themselves. For those of you working with such projects, it’s well worth reading the New Voices: What works report.

I continue to be sceptically optimistic about local journalism, more because I choose to be optimistic about small communities. Although I haven’t done truly local journalism for a long time, I remember all too well how hard it is and the dedication required. I remain slightly sceptical because I think a lot of the hype surrounding hyperlocal has needed tempering for a very long time, and I see a lot of hyperlocal projects make the same mistakes over and over and over again. Local journalism needs more of a rethink than national or international when it comes to remaking the business model. Thanks to CJR for trying to move this conversation a bit more front and centre.

Share this:

Like this:

Write Your Own Social Media Strategy

A step-by-step guide to creating your own tailor-made social media strategy for marketing and outreach, featuring 50 lectures and 3 hours of video for just $349 (~£230). Sign up now to get lifetime access, and be safe in the knowledge that there's a 30 day money back guarantee!

Search

Subscribe to Strange Attractor via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 64 other subscribers

Email Address

About Us

Suw Charman-Anderson

With a decade of social media experience, it’s fair to say that Suw is one of the UK’s social media pioneers. She has worked with many household names, helping clients worldwide use social tools for collaboration and communication internally and to build customer relationships externally. She has a comprehensive understanding of strategy and implementation, with a depth of experience that is very hard to find in such a young field of expertise.

Suw writes fiction, available only via her monthly newsletter, and is fascinated by crafts such as bookbinding, goldwork embroidery and bobbin lace. Chocolate and Vodka is her personal blog where she writes about writing and any $random_subjects that catch her eye. And yes, she's married to Kevin.

Kevin Anderson

Kevin brings almost 20 years of cutting edge journalism experience to his work. He is currently a regional executive editor for Gannett Wisconsin Media, overseeing two newsrooms, the Sheboygan Press and HTR Media.

Before joining Gannett, he held a number of pioneering positions with news organizations. In 1998, he became the BBC’s first online journalist based outside of the UK, covering the US for its award winning news website. In 2005, he went to London for the BBC where he developed a blogging strategy for BBC News, served on a corporate-wide blog and podcast steering committee, helped launch a program on BBC 5Live covering weblogs and podcasts and was on the team that launched the interactive radio program World Have Your Say on the BBC World Service.

From 2006 to 2010, he worked at The Guardian as its first blogs editor and then as its digital research editor. While blogs editor, he launched a culture blogs network, a successful food blog and an environmental blog network that incorporated both Guardian and independent content. As digital research editor, he was responsible for monitoring key developments in digital media and evaluating their value to Guardian journalists and audiences.

From June 2012 through July 2013, Kevin was a member of the management team of the Media Development Investment Fund and editor of the Fund's Knowledge Bridge site and newsletter. The Media Development Investment Fund invests in independent news organizations in emerging democracies, and the Knowledge Bridge project is designed to help these news organizations make the digital transition.

From 2010 until he joined MDIF in 2012, he worked as a freelance journalist, digital media consultant and digital journalism trainer working with news organizations including Al Jazeera, Reed Business Information, Czech TV and CNN International.